Can soul leave body before body actually dies?

Dear Rev. Jamison,

Can soul leave body before body actually dies?

Being an extension of Spirit, soul can do anything. There is a theory called "walk-ins" which assumes that soul could walk out of your body, if it wanted to, and if there was another soul waiting in the wings willing to take on your body. People who seem to have a radical change in personality are sometimes thought to be walk-ins. Personality, however, is under the direction of ego, not soul, which to my way of thinking means that such radically changed people are not walk-ins. I feel it would be more reasonable to suppose that a person who has had a near death experience could end up being a walk-in when the paddles do their fetching back work, but this does not mean that all who have near death experiences end up being walk-ins. From ancient times, "the silver cord" has been postulated as soul's tether to the body. It stretches, then snaps the soul back, when it wanders too far. When does soul wander? How about during sleep of the body? You have been to some mighty unusual places in your dreams, but your soul always returned before, or just as, the alarm clock went off.